Monday, February 21, 2005
In the grand tradition of making sure everyone out there realizes this is not the place to go for intelligent, revolutionary sports blogging, I will today waste a post by subjecting you all to a small but informative rant on something that pisses me off to no end: people who misspell the names of players or coaches on the teams they root for.
I mean, OK, I can understand if you don't really know much about football and you write something about former Miami Dolphins coach Dave Wannstat. But if you're a Dolphins fan you had damn well better write it Wannstedt, and you had damn well better do it all of the time (with the obvious exceptions for typing mishaps that happen when you're blogging-- look kids, no editor!).
I will be the first to admit that I make spelling mistakes as often as the next blogger. But I do make a concerted effort to know how to spell the names of my own guys, up to and including writing Mientkiewicz over and over until I could do it with my eyes closed back when he was on the team, and since I am (nominally) a sports blogger, if I'm not too sure about a guy's name I look it up. I'm still not perfect, no one is (not even the writers employed by 'reputable' sports writing sources, i.e. ESPN). But what the fuck, I’m going to have a rant on these anyhow, because I see them all the bloody time and at this point they’re driving me right out of my gourd.
First, common misspellings of guys on my particular teams. The part of the name in all caps is the part I most often see butchered.
TEDY Bruschi. There is only one D. I can understand this if you’re not a Pats fan, sort of, but by god, if you’re a Pats fan and you’re consistently spelling his name with two Ds, what is wrong with you? I want to hurt you. A lot.
ROSEVELT Colvin. One O. One O. One O.
Bill BELICHICK. Not Belichik, not Belicheck, not Bellychick, unless you’re making some kind of twisted joke there. I’ve seen this poor guys name get absolutely mangled in blogs of, again, Patriots fans. If you idolize the guy you should know how to fucking spell his name correctly.
Steve MARIUCCI. God, if you don’t know how to spell it, just call him Mooch, OK?
DOMINIC RAIOLA. One C, no K. Only one M and N each. RAI, not Ray or Rae or just plain old Ra. What did this guy ever do to make you destroy his name so brutally?
STOCKAR McDougle. Surprise! It’s spelled with an A, you asshats.
Olindo MARE. I know it's pronounced Mar-ay, but it is not spelled that way. What do you people think this is, Hooked on Phonics?
Junior SEAU. Another one that I often see phonetically spelled. Under no circumstances is 'Sayow' appropriate here, or anywhere, really.
David WELLS. Yes, I’ve seen it spelled Welles, numerous times, by several different bloggers. His name is Wells, for cats’ sake! How is that hard? How is that hard?
Matt CLEMENT. There is no E on the end. Dear holy lord, there is no E on the end.
JOHNNY Damon. His name is not Jonathan, don’t try to spell it like it is.
Doug MIENTKIEWICZ. Ha ha, kidding, kidding. I know most of you don’t even try with him, and the plethora of nicknames make it kind of a moot point anyways.
Jason VARITEK. I can't believe I forgot this one, I see it all the time and it drives me batshit insane (thanks Commentor Cathryn for the heads up. I'll even forgive the fact that she uses livejournal). People. It is not spelled Veritek. Verily he is a good catcher, but verily his name is spelled with a frigging A. VARItek, like his manly charms are many and VARIED. So many bloggers screw this one up. Aaargh. I'm going to go break something.
UGUETH Urbina. I can probably just leave the misspellings to your imagination here, right? People seem to have trouble deciding what U goes where, and where they go in relation to the E, and if there's an E involved at all. Google, kids. It's your friend. Use it.
Dave DOMBROWSKI. I don’t even want to go into how many people leave out the W, or inexplicably decide it needs an E on the end.
Common misspellings of guys who are on baseball teams that I don't much care about, but am driven insane over when I see them anyways:
Paul DEPODESTA. De. Pod. Esta. Not DePodedesta or DePodesesta. Urgh.
Al LEITER. I before E except after C and in Al Leiter’s name, alright?
Bobby ABREU. Why do people put an X on the end? Do they subconsciously want to pluralize him? Maybe Phillies fans do. Is this intentional? Can I get a Phillies fan weighing in on this?
Mike PIAZZA. Not Mike Pizza, and there is no T in there, no matter how much you want there to be.
Brian SCHNEIDER. Suffering from the Al Leiter syndrome.
Albert PUJOLS. Oh wait, those were probably on purpose, weren’t they?
Andy PETTITTE. I’ve seen this one just massacred, and by people who seem to be real fans of the guy, up to and including giddy fangirls. It’s like Mississippi, OK? Two Ts, an I, two Ts. Get it right.
WILY Mo Pena. I’ve seen some people use his name like they think ‘Wily’ is some sort of comment on the craftiness of a guy named Mo Pena. Guess what, morons, it’s actually his name. And I’m relatively sure it’s pronounced Willie anyways.
Lou PINIELLA. There are two Is in this name, please include both and put them in their proper locations.
COCO CRISP. No particularly prevalent misspellings, I just wanted to throw that in there.
Bartolo COLON. I think a lot of people misspell this, adding an extra L most often, simply because they don’t want to believe that this is correct. Yes, his name actually is Colon. And as he’s now playing for the team with the goofiest name in major league baseball, you’ve got to feel sorry for the guy.
Mark GRUDZIELANEK. And you call yourself a baseball fan?
I’d get into more football misspellings, but there are so many that I’d probably lose my will to live a third of the way through. I kind of want to stab my own frontal lobe just thinking about it.
And because I feel like this post is a failure without some sort of photo involved, I will introduce you to one Franklyn German, the Fattest Tiger.
Photo via the Detroit News.
He's listed at 270, which makes him a good solid 22 lbs heavier than Boomer's listed weight. Admittedly, he's taller. But cripes, just look at the guy. It's like someone put a Tigers jersey on a barrel, glued some dummy limbs on it, and called it a relief pitcher. Maybe this is actually what's been happening the past couple of years? It would explain so much.
On that note, I'm going to eat lunch. Later, kids.
edit: Aw, bloody heck, go read what Beth wrote. I'm going to go sit in the corner and sniff some art markers, because it no longer matters how brain damaged I am or not-- nothing's gonna approach what this lady is writing. Seriously, I'm the person who likes to play with pens until the little marks on the paper make a picture. Go read the real writer. And if it doesn't flobble your mind, you haven't got a mind to flobble.
12:15 PM
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